Meta launched an AI feature letting anyone tag public Instagram accounts to generate fake images of them without permission. The backlash was so fierce Meta killed it after three days. Matt Wolfe breaks down the privacy disaster and whether it was negligence or a stunt.
Instagram launched the most tone-deaf AI feature I've seen yet. Meta added a new feature that lets you tag any public Instagram account and generate completely new AI images of that person. No permission needed. And public accounts were apparently opted in automatically, so a complete stranger could take a celebrity or politician or influencer's face and place them in a fake ad or a fake event. Or if your own profile is public, they can make a fake image of you doing anything they want to make you do. I mean, to be fair, if you're a public figure of any sort, people can and already kind of do this with AI, but if you're just a regular person with a public Instagram profile, that's a whole other safety and security nightmare. The backlash got so bad that Meta removed the feature just 3 days after it launched. I'm just wondering who at Meta approved this idea in the first place and didn't see that backlash coming, or did they do it on purpose just for the attention? Let me know which one you think it is in the comments.
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